Adapting Instruction

  Adapting instruction is important for several reasons. For one thing, schools are seeing more and more classrooms with a large number of children with special needs included. Educators need to be able to adapt their lessons to accommodate a large span of abilities and academic levels. It is important we have an understanding of how to best do this because we need to be able to adapt a lesson to suit the purpose without “giving away the grade.” For instance, Johnny may need the test presented orally because he has a visual disability. Depending on his cognitive delays or lack-there-of I will still ask him the same questions I am asking the other students. I just need to prepare for this. Can a volunteer conduct activities with my other students while I give Johnny and maybe several other students their test orally? Or can he take the test at the same time as the rest of the class but with a recording and headphones?  My goal is to give Johnny the closest thing to a “typical” classroom experience while not causing him failure due to his disability. Another reason that adapting instruction is important is that teaching is not a one-size-fits all delivery. While in one class having all the material for a project spread out on the table is the most efficient, effective way to accomplish our goals, in another class I may have the students get their own materials out. Students in that first class have already accomplished the motor skills they need and my focus is on the actual project. For students in the other class, the act of their reaching up for the materials may be their ultimate success for that project. Perhaps watching them glue on paper will not be the point of that project because they can already work the glue stick. Surely it might have been easier for me to just lay the materials out but I would have deprived them of the challenge and the ultimate success.